Loyalty
by blinkblink
Summary: Post Head of a Pin, pre The Rapture. "You never found out who was killing angels, or how. But now you know." In an incident which never took place, Dean discovers that he and Castiel have more common enemies than he knew. No pairings, mildly AU from HoaP.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Don't own Supernatural or the characters. I'll lay claim to the angels with the horrible names; seriously, even after wracking my brains I still can't come up with convincing names for them.

Notes: Just two chapters, no continuation, almost certainly no sequel. Set sometime after On The Head of a Pin, but before The Rapture. AU-wise, this assumes Castiel didn't tell Dean anything about Uriel in the hospital at the end of OtHoaP. Second half up tomorrow.

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Dean wakes up lying flat on his back on a cold marble floor in his sleeping T and boxers.

He startles his way into full consciousness, pulls himself into a sitting position with the momentum, sparking a vicious complaint from his tailbone. Dean takes in the minor details – the gilt, the candles glowing warmly in silver holders on the walls, the crystal chandelier overhead – absently. The bulk of his attention is focused on the tall man standing on the other side of the room, a trim man of middle age with a receding hairline dressed in a tailored grey suit.

"Hello, Dean," says the suit, smiling mild as milk.

Dean's on his feet in an instant, marble unforgiving under his bare soles, with his back to the wall an instant later. "Who the hell're you?"

The man's smile doesn't exactly disappear, rather it withers into something smaller, meaner, while his eyes harden under sharp brows.

"Castiel has mentioned your impiety. I must say, I didn't expect to be struck by it so early."

"You know Castiel?" Dean keeps his back against the wall, but stops looking for a weapon. If this is an angel, it won't do any good. It says a lot about the turns his life has taken recently that that's a cause for concern.

"We're in the same garrison," answers the man – the possible angel.

"So what, you've got a message from him?"

"Not exactly." Mr. Possibly-Holy-Roller pulls out what looks a bit like a night-stick, albeit shorter and thinner and made of silver, from the breast pocket of his suit with a careless movement. Dean backs away with one guiding arm on the wall, staring at it.

"Hey, uh, why don't we talk about this?"

"There's nothing to talk about. Why we have been wasting our time with insignificant primordial _slime_ like you is beyond my comprehension."

"See you went to the Uriel school of human relations," mutters Dean, and stumbles as he hits the corner. He tries to glance around without taking his eyes off the advancing figure, draws only an impression of white and gold and a definite lack of exits.

"We don't need a human to fight our battles for us. Why should we place ourselves beneath you? We might as well humble ourselves to cockroaches."

"Hey, I myself couldn't agree more. But people keep telling me that's not what the man upstairs thinks," says Dean lightly, eyes still on the silver pole which is definitely thin enough at the tip to skewer a man.

"Only according to some," growls the angel, and raises his weapon ready to stab. Dean makes to break away, and finds himself pinned in place with the same crushing power the demons are so fond of, his back to the wall. Helpless.

"I would say I'm sorry," a flick of an eyebrow, a twitch of the lips, "but that would be a lie." He stabs – Dean shuts his eyes waiting for the pain, the dark. The fire.

Instead there's a warm breath of air, a quiet wet sound, and a surprised hiss from the angel. Dean opens his eyes and finds himself staring at the back of Castiel's head. He looks down and his eyes are drawn and held by the gleaming tip of silver protruding from the shorter angel's back, just to the side of his shoulder blade. In the candlelight, the blood shines like a gem.

There's a lithe movement like a shrug which Dean doesn't wholly catch, and then Castiel is pressing forward while the other falls back and then topples. He hits the floor with a hole in the grey fabric above his heart, eyes staring up at the chandelier. Dean never even saw the weapon change hands.

"Shut your eyes," says Castiel in a voice full of broken glass.

There's a burst of light and warm wind; it flattens Dean's hair and rips briefly at his loose clothes. When he opens his eyes again, Castiel has slumped to his knees, back to Dean. On the floor beyond, the marble on either side of the fallen man has been scorched with a pattern of wings.

"Did you just _kill_ him?" asks Dean, staring.

Castiel doesn't answer. The other angel doesn't move, and Dean doesn't have to look closer to know that the vessel, at least, is toast.

"Cas?"

The angel is still, back straight as a pole, legs folded beneath him. His coat has fallen out to trail behind him in a neat echo of the wings burned into the marble opposite him. Dean pushes off from the wall and pads around to face the angel, feet slapping quietly on the cold marble. Castiel's staring at the corpse in front of him with narrow eyes, one hand pressed against his chest. And he's breathing hard.

"Are you okay?"

"You need to leave, now," says Castiel roughly, and looks up at Dean with fierce eyes.

"Yeah, okay," says Dean sarcastically. "Oh wait, I don't know _where the hell I am_. What's going on here?"

Overhead, the crystals in the chandelier begin to hum quietly. Dean looks up and sees they're trembling, shaking.

Castiel takes the hand from his chest and reaches out to Dean; the palm is bloody. Overhead, the crystals are now dancing and ringing like bells.

"Dean!" barks the angel, and Dean realises he's standing too far away for Castiel to reach. Steps closer, and the wet grip snags his wrist tight.

There's no flash of light, no sensation of movement, no warning. He doesn't even blink, although it feels like he has. One second he's staring at Castiel framed by a backdrop of elaborate opulence, the next he's staring at a Castiel-shaped shadow framed by a backdrop of dim fields.

Wherever they are, it's some time before dawn; the sky in what must be the east is only just beginning to be tinged with a lighter shade of blue than the navy velvet above. In the darkness all Dean can see is that the land is relatively flat, and the sky is wide. As his eyes adjust, he can pick out the stars scattered in the sky clear and bright – the moon must have set – which means they're nowhere near a big city. The air is cold against his bare skin, but not unbearably so. The ground under his feet is sharp and uneven; gravel.

There's a crunching shift ahead of him; Castiel changing position. Slumping further.

"Uh, Cas? Are you okay?" He's loath to touch the angel – for all Dean knows that carries some sort of insta-smite policy – but it's clear that the guy's not running on all cylinders. Either that or something's seriously off with his GPS.

"Not entirely," admits the angel. In the hush of the country night, he can still hear Cas breathing, and now has time to recognize that that's a first. He sounds like he's trying to catch his breath.

"Can't you just, you know, wave your hand and voilà?"

"No. Esriel's weapon was too powerful… it was made to kill angels. Even a miss apparently … does grievous harm." That the angel has to pause for breath is proof enough of that. Still, his voice is flat as ever, without any indication of pain.

It occurs to Dean for the first time, even knowing angels have been dying, even having just _seen_ one iced, that Castiel could be killed. And then it occurs to him that he should be worried, not just mildly curious. He tries to kick his brain into the appropriate gear.

"Should I do something? Does it hurt?"

"Just go find Sam. Continue your work. I will be fine."

"Dude, I'm not gonna leave you out on the middle of some field in the back of nowhere – I don't even know where we _are_," says Dean, explosively. And then, on further reflection, "Besides, I'm out here with no clothes, no cash, and no car."

"I can't help that. I can't transport you again. You'll have to get to Sam on your own."

Dean bites back a sarcastic remark. "And what, you'll just lie here waiting for some demon to come along and find you bleeding on the road? Fuck, Cas, it doesn't take much to see that you're like a bird with his damn wings torn off right now, and the world's crammed full of cats looking for an easy meal."

"You should worry about yourself," says the angel, gruffly.

"I am. You think I'd get a gold star for leaving an angel lying around helpless?"

Castiel says nothing, but a shift in the gravel suggests he has slumped further.

"Right," says Dean, ignoring the silence. "Now, where are we?"

"About forty miles away from Warren, Arkansas," says the angel quietly.

"Great. Where's that?"

"A hundred miles south of Little Rock."

"Well. Only a couple hundred miles off. Not bad," says Dean with bright sarcasm. Sam is up in Fayetteville where they were tracking a possible Redcap, assuming no heavenly visitors popped in on him too. Which leaves them stuck in the middle of nowhere with miles to go and without food, supplies, proper clothes, weapons or money. And an angel doing a good stuck-pig impersonation. "Any idea how long it's going to take you to fix yourself up?"

"I have no experience with this," grits out the angel. Although his words are clear and strong, they're laced with the effort of keeping them that way. "A day or two, perhaps."

"Great. And I'm guessing you're not feeling up to walking?"

"You really should leave me… The danger will not be inordinate."

"Yeah, well, I'll keep that in mind. I'm sure I'll be much easier to convince after a few hours of lugging your ass out of here." He takes a step forwards and winces at the sharp press of gravel into his feet. "First thing's first. What size shoes do you wear?"

This is greeted with silence so long Dean wonders if the angel's passed out. "Cas?"

"How should I know?" His tone is one of exhaustion and uncertainty rather than reproof. Mostly.

Dean sighs. "Great, comparing shoe sizes with an angel in the dark," he mutters. In the end, he's forced to sit down carefully in front of Castiel, sweeping away the pointiest stones first. "Give me your foot," he says, and then as the angel shifts slowly to sit with his feet in front of him, "This is probably really symbolic, or something." He finds one foot with searching hands, fingers brushing over worn and dusty leather. Scoots to allow him to put his own against the bottom, one hand at his heel, the other at his toes. With his heel against the heel of Castiel's shoe, the tips of his toes are even with the tapered tip of the sole. "Oh come _on_," he hisses, drawing away in disgust.

They sit there in the middle of the country road for a minute, a man wearing only a laundry-stretched t-shirt and boxers that are already gritty with the dust of the road, and an angel in a slumped over-dressed heap bleeding quietly into a dirty suit.

"Well, enough sulking," says Dean eventually, and gets to his feet, still squatting. "You mind me borrowing your coat? It's not exactly Florida out here. Besides, we're gonna get some strange looks as it is."

There's a pause, and then, "It doesn't matter," says the angel, as if the idea that he could change his clothes has never occurred to him. Maybe it hasn't. Warriors of Heaven probably have more on their minds than making a fashion statement. He pulls it off in slow, jerky movements, although whether his lack of coordination is due to inexperience or his injury or both Dean can't tell. It's heavy under Dean's hands – good material, well lined – and he's surprised. Association with Castiel has given it just a hint of insubstantiality in his mind. He rolls his eyes at himself and pulls it on; it fits well enough, a bit tight in the shoulders. Like Castiel, he doesn't bother to do it up. It's not that cold, or at least it won't be when he gets moving.

"Alright. Let's get going." Dean reaches out, pauses. And then, awkwardly, "Sorry about this," he adds as he grabs Castiel's wrist, is surprised to feel a watch under the jacket. He doesn't bother wondering about it, just hoists the angel up onto his shoulders. Castiel makes a quiet sound as the air is knocked out of him, head down by Dean's upper arm while his legs hang knocking against the hunter's right side. The extra weight drives the gravel into the soft undersides of Dean's feet all the harder, and he grits his teeth. "You okay?" he forces out.

"Yes," says Castiel, in a tone that sounds a lot like _I'm really not sure_.

"Great. Which way's Warren?"

"To your right," hisses the angel.

"Thanks." Dean hurries across the gravel, moving like water on a hot skillet, and hits the soft verge where dry dusty grass is growing. "Geronimo."

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They walk a long way without talking. Or, more accurately, Dean walks while Castiel bounces along on his shoulders. He stops once to switch the angel to lie the other way; Castiel makes no comment.

Dean knows how long it takes him to run a mile, and he knows how long it takes him to sprint 100 yards – although that can depend on just how nasty the thing behind him is – but he's never been into walking and can only estimate from rough calculations how far they've come. He has no watch either, after all, and discovers early on that Castiel's has stopped. Surprise.

The sun's just coming up when they spot the buildings away near the horizon ahead. No cars have been by, but it's hardly surprising. The road's a one-lane back road, probably only used by farmers. Dean hitches Castiel higher on his shoulders and heads for the town.

Every now and then he asks the angel about his wound. The only answer is "acceptable." Dean takes this to mean it's not going to kill him in the immediate future.

It's only when they get closer to the town – more like a few houses lining a paved road – that Dean breaks the silence again.

"So," he says, "Do we have a plan here?"

Castiel says nothing.

"I mean, I'm good to go in all Clint Eastwood with you on my back, but it might raise a few eyebrows. Of course," he adds, in the obvious point, "it's not like a guy turning up in his PJs and a trench coat's gonna go unnoticed. You'd be a good option, if you could walk."

Castiel says nothing.

"Alright then. Guess I'll go in alone and try to call Sammy. You can wait in the ditch."

Castiel says nothing.

"I'm so glad we've got this great partnership going," mutters Dean.

The problem with the land being as flat as it is is that, while he was able to spot the town from a long way away, the town is therefore able to spot _them_ from a long way away as well. Dean leaves it to less than a mile, but he's already getting itchy by that point; they really do _not_ need to have a run in with the local sheriff.

So, he chooses a spot with a conveniently gentle slope into the field to the left of the road and hurries down into the dirt. The field is growing some kind of big green leafy vegetable; Dean's no agriculture expert but probably something like cabbage, he thinks. The earth is dry and dusty with lack of rain, lying in thick clumps that disintegrate into fine dirt when he steps on them. He walks along until he's at the point where the slope between the road and the field is highest, and stops.

"Time to get down," he hisses, and with a complicated shrug and duck of his head slides the angel off his shoulders and onto his own feet. Castiel's legs promptly give out under him, and Dean's forced to lunge to catch him and help him sit in a graceless heap leaning back against the grass of the slope. His face is pale and sweat-soaked; the front of his suit is stained red. Dean stares.

"Shit, Cas, why didn't you say something?" He reaches out to pull the dark jacket away from the angel's chest to reveal the bright crimson-stained shirt beneath. "You need a hospital or a doctor or… something."

Castiel's eyes are unconcerned, and although his body is clearly suffering, there is no pain in them. "The wound can't kill me, Dean… It will merely weaken me… for a while."

"You're bleeding like a stuck pig!" He turns to look over his shoulder; sure enough, the trench coat has a corresponding stain over the shoulder and back. "_Dammit_, Cas!" Fists bunched, he fights not to drive one into the earth.

The angel watches him calmly. Dean has no idea whether he's really ignorant of how hard he's making this, or whether he just doesn't care.

"Look," Dean snarls, "one of us has to go into that town to call Sam and get him to drag his ass out here and pick us up. It's not going to be you, so it's gotta be me, and that means I can't show up _covered in blood_. Or do you want to sit out here eating cabbages until you heal up enough to click your heels and take us where we need to go?"

"Broccoli," says the angel, absently.

"What?"

"The crop is broccoli," repeats Castiel.

"Well that's fucking _dandy_. You gonna work with me here, Cas?"

Castiel focuses his gaze from the point in the distance he's been staring at to Dean, with a speed that makes the hunter tense. But he simply raises and hand and lays it light as snow on Dean's shoulder. Then drops it again. Dean turns; the stain is gone. Turns back; the angel is slumped against the grass with his eyes closed.

"Cas?"

"Do what you need to." His voice is flat and empty.

"Right." Dean stands, glances back down at the angel. Opens his mouth, then shuts it again. Sets off towards the town again, without another word.

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It's a one-horse town, the kind Dean's seen more of than he can count. The faded sign a few yards from the first buildings reads "Dry Creek." _No shit_, thinks Dean.

He knows how things work in this kind of place, knows everything revolves around the general store. Knows that it'll be the centre of activity, something he wants desperately to avoid. But he also knows that there's no chance of breaking into a house to use a phone – everyone sees everything in a town this small, and he's got nowhere to run to. So he pulls the coat around him, doing up the buttons in the horrible clawing knowledge that this is a prime flasher coat and _there is not enough bleach in the world to score out the thoughts that just popped into his head_. Snarling, he buries his hands deep in the coat's pockets for the first time, having needed his hands to keep Castiel from tumbling off his shoulders until now.

He is really and truly shocked to find that they're not empty; yanks his hands out as though he plunged them into scalding water, and stops where he's standing to glance down slowly.

Dean had simply never imagined the angel might carry things around with him, and now that he's been presented with proof that he does, Dean can't imagine what they might be. He's not at all sure he _wants_ to know. But there's no such thing as a hunter who doesn't investigate oddities, because they end up underground before they can claim the title. So Dean slips his hand back into the left pocket, slow as he'd skirt a rattler. And pulls out a couple of crinkled receipts, a piece of grey string, and a penny.

He stares down at the exceedingly unexceptional collection in his palm, then unfolds the receipts with careful fingers. They're badly creased and in some places stained, but Dean can still make out the bills of sale for 20 gallons of gas at a pump & pay, a $15.00 hair cut, and some unnamed produce.

It has to be the most mundane collection Dean's ever seen. Even he and Sam do better: hideous silver picture frames, iron rods, bloodwart, pie… Dean crumples the papers all together again and drops the ball back into the pocket. Reaches into the other, and pulls out a slim leather wallet.

There is no way angels carry wallets – or buy gas or haircuts or – or – _broccoli _– and staring at the black square in his palm, Dean knows exactly what he's holding. Possibly the only proof there ever was another soul in what is now the angel's body. Proof that, whatever Castiel says, Dean's a willing – or at least silent – accomplice to some helpless Joe's possession.

The disgust burns like acid in his throat.

It's cowardly and pathetic, but he flips the wallet open, pulls out the bills in the centre fold, and snaps it shut before he can see anything other than the gleam of laminated plastic.

A couple of twenties. Not bad. He holds onto that thought as he slips the wallet back into the coat's pocket – it drops like a stone in a well. He shoves the bills in after it, crisp paper crackling against his fingers. Pulls his hands out again and sighs. Starts walking.

There's not much activity in the town – a couple of kids chasing each other on rusty bikes, the postman wandering from door to door with his mail bag slung over his shoulder, a couple of old ladies in hideous floral print dresses gossiping on a porch at the far end of the main street.

Dean slips around the house at the head of his end of the street – wooden slats smeared with an uneven layer of cracking yellow paint, window frames done in white that's now a nice pale fawn brown with the dust – and keeps in the shade of the houses as he shuffles along towards the general store; predictably it's several buildings in.

Dry Creek's a thirsty town. Everywhere the wood has sucked all the moisture from the paint, leaving it as parched as mud on the bottom of a dry riverbed. The trees are gnarled and mean, leaves tough and shiny in the already-bright morning sun. A thick layer of dust covers everything.

Everything includes the aluminum step leading up to the General Store – Ralph's, the flaking sign says. It's just as well, since otherwise Dean's bare foot would have left a perfect print behind.

He steps into the store, and immediately shuffles over to the counter to keep his feet out of sight. The store's dim after the morning brightness, and smells of cigarettes and 5 cent bubblegum and cut grass. The bell over the door jingles away for several seconds before someone lurches forward out of the depths of the narrow store aisles. Dean doesn't need to look to know they're packed with junk food, home supplies, tools, magazines, clothes and, doubtless somewhere in the back, the ubiquitous fishing and gardening supplies even if there aren't many rivers or gardens around.

"Morning," says the clerk – possibly Ralph – in a lazy drawl, plastic-weave cap shading a middle-aged face with more crags than a mountainside, leathery skin split through with deep crevasses.

"Morning," says Dean, full of confidence and bravado and projecting a "just one of the boys" field so strong birds would have run right into it. "Had some trouble on the road. Can I use your phone?" He pulls out a bill as a reference, twists it between two fingers.

"Sure. You know, every year we write to Warren for a payphone, but do they listen? Nah, 'ain't got no call for it,' they say," the man produces an exaggerated drawl. "Goddamn politicians." Possibly-Ralph fishes a dirty eggshell-coloured phone from behind the counter and puts it on the board with a clatter. "Local call?"

"In state," says Dean, putting down the bill and picking up the receiver in exchange. He punches in Sam's number, and waits for the call to connect. There's the sharp click of the line picking up, and then another click. Dean's eyes narrow. Sure enough, Sam's voice comes on loud and clear a second later, the same "This is Sam, leave a message," that his brother's been sporting at least since Dean got back from Below and judging by the ruffled tone probably before. Dean bites back a snarl and a curse, irritatingly aware of the man behind the counter painstakingly making change from his bill.

"It's me," says Dean in a falsely easy-going tone. "Took a ride with one of Cas' friends, but he ditched us down in –" Dean recalls the sign, and Cas' words, "Dry Creek, 30 miles out of Warren. We're heading there. Get your ass down here and pick us up." He drops the phone back into its cradle more gently than he feels like.

"Sounds like you're in a spot of trouble," says might-be-Ralph, pushing his change over the scarred countertop.

Dean smiles falsely, scooping it up. "Nah, just a stupid prank. You know those Little Rock frat boys." But, since he seems to have lucked out with his reception, "But, uh, you wouldn't happen to have some shoes for sale, would you?"

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The day's already heating up when he makes it back to Cas, coat hanging open, rustling bags in each hand and plastic crocs on his feet. He feels like he just walked out of a damn trailer park.

Castiel is sitting where Dean left him, staring out into the broccoli field with far-focused eyes. He glances at Dean as he slides down the slope, which is more recognition than Dean's seen from the angel since they started.

"How're you doing?" Dean squats down beside him, coat tails trailing in the dirt, and fishes through the bags for a bottle of water. Finds it and opens the lid with a plastic crack.

"Acceptably."

"Here." He holds out the water. Castiel looks at it, then back at Dean.

"I don't drink."

"Yeah, well, this isn't exactly 90% proof." A blank stare. Dean sighs. "Okay, seriously, with the amount of blood you've lost, if you don't replace it with something you're gonna keel over."

"I told you already: I won't die."

"You sure about that? 'Cause right now you're looking pretty damn pasty."

The angel is in fact looking relatively good for the fact that he's got a hole right next to his heart and has a nice set of matching blood stains on the front and back of his suit. He is paler than usual, with shadows under his eyes and a light sheen of sweat on his skin, but shows nothing like the symptoms a normal person would suffer in the same circumstances.

Mostly he just looks tired. Weary. It's a look Dean recognises well enough; he's been seeing it in the mirror a lot lately.

"I'm sure. Did you contact Sam?"

"I left a message," says Dean darkly, still irritated with the lack of answer. And then suddenly not, as another thought occurs. He drops the water and looks sharply at Castiel. "He's okay, right? I mean, no one else picked him up?" If some of the angels want him dead, he doesn't even have a word for how much they must want Sam iced. "Cas?" he barks, deep and gruff.

"I'm not omniscient, Dean." Castiel's staring off into the distance, looking out over miles of farmland.

"I'm not asking you to know goddamn _everything_, I'm asking you to know _one_ thing: _is my brother okay_?" He reaches out to grab the angel's lapels, but thinks the better of it when Castiel turns his eyes on him, and just fists his hands tight and hard instead.

After a minute, Castiel's gaze softens. "I can't tell you how he is now… but when I came to you… you alone had been taken."

"Dammit, Sam," hisses Dean, slamming his hand on the water bottle, driving it several inches down into the soft soil. Behind him, the wind rustles through the heavy green leaves. Far away, a hawk whistles.

"Alright," says Dean, looking up. "We get ready, and then we keep heading on. We can't count on Sam coming to get us. We need to get to a bigger town. Can you walk?"

"Not very far," says the angel, shifting stiffly.

"Perfect. You still bleeding?"

Castiel looks down, then pulls the dark jacket away from his chest. His shirt is a canvas of different shades of red, ranging from light pink to dark brown. In the centre, it is still the dark shiny red of fresh blood. "Somewhat," he answers, completely unconcerned.

"Okay. Here." Dean pulls a thick adhesive pad from the bag, stripping off the plastic and handing it to the angel.

"This isn't necessary."

"Yeah, well, you can wear it for my peace of mind. And your damn coat."

Castiel gives him an unimpressed look, but begins to fumble one-handedly with the buttons of his shirt. Dean takes this opportunity to eat a few energy bars and chug half the bottle of water. By the time Castiel has stuck the gauze over his wound and straightened his clothes again – odd how he makes such an effort to keep them in the same state rather than improving them, but who's Dean to comment? – Dean has finished his impromptu brunch and is straightening up the bags. He leaves the one filled with empty wrappers beside him – Sam would whine about littering, but Sam's not here – and puts the only defensive item he could find in his pocket. The salt container is heavy and bulky, but he wasn't leaving with nothing. The rest goes all together in the other bag. Castiel's staring out at the horizon again when he finishes; probably spending so much time with a human is a new experience for him. Except the one he's in, obviously. Dean flinches away from that thought, and straightens up.

"Right. Time to hit the road. You ready?"

Castiel makes no answer, which Dean takes for a yes. He grabs the angel's arm and pulls him up onto his back again, Castiel giving the same quiet sigh as the wind is knocked out of him. Dean hands him the remaining bag. "Here, you can hold this. And tell me when you're okay to walk."

Castiel says nothing, but takes the bag.

Dean rolls his eyes, and starts walking.

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Dean skirts Dry Creek good and wide, cutting through fields of miscellaneous agricultural produce and ducking down to avoid trucks and tractors. They're easy enough to spot in the flat lands and besides, he can always hear them coming a long time before they're in visual range.

They come up on a larger town several hours later, when the sun is already getting low in the western sky. By this point Dean's throat feels like the inside of an hourglass left on a hotplate, and his back is drenched in sweat. He bought three bottles of water from Ralph; they weren't enough.

He hunkers down on the edge of a corn field, corn just barely above knee-height and so useless for hiding, and lets Cas down. The angel doesn't look much less pale, but his sweating has mostly stopped.

"You up to walking?" Dean glances at the first house of the town, only a field's length down the road. Larger than Dry Creek, the town also has a wider urban sprawl, if that word can apply to a town of 30,000, houses out here standing here and there on small properties fronted by gravel roads, too far from the town centre for paved roads and sidewalks.

"Yes," says the angel, in a voice full of gravel. "Why?"

Dean doesn't bother to grumble about the angel's failing to mention it earlier. "Because I burned through the money in your wallet buying that stuff," he indicates the plastic bag at Cas' side. "We're gonna have to use plastic. Which means _you're_ gonna have to use plastic, 'cause I've got no ID to back it up and it's going to be real awkward if they ask for some – which, you know, in their place, I totally would – and see your picture on it."

Dean reaches into his pocket and pulls out the wallet again. Flips it open and, face blank, and pulls out a gold visa card. He reads the name printed in raised letters, "Jimmy Novac." Looks to Castiel. "That's who you are? I mean, that's him?" It's hard to indicate _the man you're using like a puppet _with his eyes.

"Yes," says Castiel, simply.

"And he's in there, right now? Watching you running around in his meat suit?" It's easier to joke, to euphemise, to hide from the intense connotations. Dean learned that a long time ago.

"No. He is buried deep. My actions are not his; we do not burden our hosts with our choices." Unspoken: _we are not demons_. Dean's still not so sure of the distinction.

"So, what, you just pull a nice little time-warp stunt? He's gonna wake up some day and everyone he knows'll be 10, 20, 50 years older? Will be dead? That's kinder?"

"He volunteered, Dean. He asked to help me of his own initiative. Without vessels, we couldn't stop the demons. Without vessels, the Apocalypse would already have come about. Sacrifices are necessary."

"Oh, well, that's okay then," snarls Dean. He's been over this ground so often it's trampled and bare with his steps well worn in. There's no simple solution, no button to press to make everything work, and no matter how long he rails against the stupid unfairness of it all, there's _nothing_ he can do to change it. And that goes against everything he was ever taught. Dad raised him and Sam to do the impossible, to kill things that don't exist, to save people no one else even knew were in danger, and he can't lift a finger to save this poor bastard.

And, a hundred, a thousand, a _million_ times worse, he's not entirely sure that he should. For the first time in his life, he's found something he knows is wrong, and isn't doing anything to stop it. And every time he looks at Castiel – at_ Jimmy_ – that betrayal twists like a knife in his heart.

Dean turns to look at the corn waving in the breeze for a while, until the pounding fades from his ears and his skin cools. When he turns back, Castiel is staring at the horizon. After a second, he looks at Dean.

"Can you forge this?" Dean asks, handing Castiel the card with Jimmy Novac's signature on the back. Castiel takes the piece of plastic between his fingers, the way he holds it says that to him it is nothing more than a scrap of useless garbage, and glances down at it. The signature on the back is careful and elaborate, but has the flowing grace which suggests it's one which is used frequently.

"Yes," he says, and hands it back. Dean slips it into the wallet, pausing to pull out a driver's licence made out to Jimmy Novac of Pontiac, Illinois, 34. The photo matches Castiel sure enough, although the hair style is flatter and more white collar. Dean flips it over in his hands a couple of times. It's stupid, he knows, but still he feels like he's holding the only proof that there's someone in there other than Castiel. Feels like he's holding a plea for help. He shoves it back into the wallet in one sharp motion, and then hands the whole thing to Castiel, prods it at the angel until he takes it.

Castiel does, giving it a short glance which nevertheless suggests he's never seen it. Probably, he never has.

"Keep it somewhere safe; it's important," says Dean gruffly. Castiel looks down at the suit jacket – another thing he's probably never seen – and puts it into the right pocket. His left side is still covered in blood, just a darker patch against the black of the suit and a dull rusty colour on the white linen visible under it. "You're gonna have to do something about that stain," Dean waves at it.

Castiel closes his eyes briefly and waves a passes hand over his chest. When it's finished moving by, the stain is gone. Dean gets up to look at the angel's back; the stain there is gone as well, as is the hole in the fabric.

"Good. Let's go."

He stands, grabbing the bag from beside Castiel and shaking it to knock away the dust. Castiel gets to his feet with a slow looseness that almost looks like grace but is more likely due to weak muscles. Turns to face the town.

"Come on," says Dean gruffly, and starts. Behind him, Castiel waits for a moment, then follows.

-------------------------------------------------

Feeling only slightly more normal with a pair of shoes on his feet, Dean stalks through Terrence with a bag of empty packaging in his hand and an angel behind him. Confident now that he doesn't have a wounded man to lug around with him just waiting to create awkward situations, he walks into the first store he comes to and asks for the bus stop for Little Rock.

The old lady behind the counter of the knitting shop – okay, first store was a mistake – gives him a half-suspicious, half-cowed look, and directs him to the station two streets over. "But," she adds in a voice like newspaper rustling, "the last bus to Little Rock went some ten minutes ago. Furthest you'll get is Warren. Might be one from there."

Dean bites back a curse, thanks her instead, and barges out. Castiel is waiting on the porch outside and follows him wordlessly, nearly back to his usual disapproving self. As natural states go, it's a pretty irritating one.

The station – two roads over as indicated – turns out to be a booth in a store which also contains the post office and local hunting and fishing licence counter. As predicted by the knitting store grandma, the last bus to Little Rock's gone, and there's not even a chance of Fayetteville. He requests two tickets to Warren – $23.50 – and glances behind him to Castiel who's glowering vacantly at the envelope rack.

"Hey, Jimmy," he says shortly. Castiel takes the hint and comes over. With more normalcy than Dean could ever have imagined from him, he pulls the wallet out, slips the Visa from its sheath and lays it on the counter with a quiet click as if it's something he does every day. Dean struggles not to stare. The man behind the counter takes the card without a glance and runs it through the machine while Castiel waits patiently. Hands him the long thin receipt and a well-chewed blue pen. As Dean watches with a carefully idle expression, the angel takes the pen and, without any apparent effort, directs it into a clean flowing signature and then hands both pen and receipt back.

It's a tiny thing, but it's the most normal thing Dean has ever seen the angel do, period. Not that he's seen him do much other than stand around looking unimpressed or occasionally lose fights. And, while it's probably the thing most like his vessel which Castiel has ever done, all it makes Dean wonder about is the angel himself. Makes him wonder just how human Castiel is. Before this minute, he would have rated him somewhere around hammer on the scale of rock to Oprah. But no one can act so completely with no understanding of the part, right? Right?

He's not sure, and Dean's never dealt well with uncertainty. Gordon Walker was a complete 100% raving psychopath, but the one stance of his Dean would have liked to be able to buy into was the black and white world. No grey scale.

As far as he can tell, all angels _are_ is grey scale.

The man behind the counter hands Castiel the tickets, the angel takes them with a nod and turns.

"Thanks," says Dean, and follows the angel out.

He stops in at the tiny convenience store on the corner to pick up a bottle of water, a coke and a bag of chips, pays with the small change left in his pocket. When he comes out, Castiel's sitting on the bench in front of the sole bus stop. According to the ticket man, the bus should be showing up pretty soon. Dean lumbers over and sits, cracks open the water and takes a long drink.

"Want some?" he asks, when he's drained half the bottle.

"No," says Castiel, staring into the empty road.

Dean takes another swig. "Nice job with the signature," he says, eventually. Castiel doesn't answer, and Dean sees another solution to his problem: a lack of acting entirely. "You did do it yourself, right? Didn't drag a little bit of Jimmy up to give you a hand?" he uses a falsely playful tone.

Castiel turns and gives him a long, slow look. "I know it is difficult for you to believe, but we do not abuse our vessels. A signature is simply a collection of variables arranged in a constant and predictable pattern; it is not difficult to reproduce."

It's not the answer he was expecting, in part because it _is_ an answer. Castiel's never taken accusations silently, although he hasn't always disagreed with them either, but he's rarely explained his actions. Dean, surprised, lets the matter drop. It might also be partially due to the fact that the bus rounds the corner at this point.

Apparently Warren's not a popular run; there are only a handful of people lounging around who trundle over to board the grey steel bus: a young couple, a kid with headphones almost bigger than his head, a few old people. Each takes his or her own window seat. Dean chooses a free one without stains halfway down the left side and slides in next to the window, drops his bag down by his feet. Castiel sits down next to him in a slow, stiff movement and immediately slackens against the seat back, eyes closing.

"You okay?"

"Acceptable," answers the angel, without opening his eyes. It's only now that Dean notices he's sweating again, although less profusely than before.

"Maybe you should get some sleep. It'll be a couple of hours to Warren."

"I don't sleep," answers Cas in a low murmur.

"Yeah, well, you should consider it."

Castiel doesn't answer. Dean turns to look out the window as the bus starts up, and rumbles off down the road.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

Notes: Once again, this assumes the hospital conversation of On the Head of a Pin included nothing to do with Uriel (…because I forgot about it).

It's a long drive. Dean's got no music, no book, no one to talk to, and nothing to focus on. He spends most of his time staring out the window at the passing fields, towns, fields, barns, and more fields. The road is at least smooth and flat, but with Cas not up to par and without any weapons he can't allow himself to fall asleep. Not that he could do much if a demon popped up to attack them now other than try to spear it with a coke bottle. Castiel doesn't open his eyes once.

Warren has an actual bus station, admittedly just a small one-room building with two benches and also, most importantly, a payphone. Dean drops his last quarters into the slot and waits for the tone, then punches in Sam's number. Castiel sits on the bench with his back bent in a steep curve, arms resting on his knees.

The connection clicks in and then, glory halleluiah, starts ringing.

Sam picks up on the third ring, sounding like he's got his panties in a serious twist. "Yeah?"

"Sam?"

"Dean! Where the hell are you?"

"In Warren. Did you get my message?"

"Yeah, man, I drove all the way down to Dry Creek! Didn't see you anywhere!"

Dean suddenly regrets the ducking through fields.

"Yeah, well. Where are you now?"

"On my way back to Little Rock, a few miles out from Warren. Figured maybe you'd gotten a bus that far, or something."

"Well, we didn't. Get your ass back down here and pick us up."

"We?"

"Cas is with me." Dean glances at the angel, who doesn't react to his name.

There's a pause on the other end, and Dean knows what's coming next. He anticipates it as the phone beeps a warning. "Look, I'll tell you when you get here. Meet us in the bus sta –" there's a second beep, and the call drops. Dean slams the receiver down and curses. But it'll be enough. Sam'll be here soon.

Dean walks over to Castiel, damn crocs flapping like clown shoes on the stained linoleum floor, stops by the angel's side. "Sam's on his way down. I'm going to take a leak."

He doesn't bother to wait for the angel's silence, just heads off towards the door marked Gents.

The bathroom's the standard bus station edition; cracked tiles, graffiti, and overlying it all the stink of urine and cigarette smoke. Dean's just zipping up when the door swings open on complaining hinges and Castiel hurries in with an intense expression. He looks much less imposing bursting into rooms without his coat.

"We need to leave," is all he says, walking straight past Dean and over to the far wall. There's a small window set into it about five feet up, thick frosted glass covering an exit about two feet long and a foot tall. Castiel reaches up and grabs the lock, which completely fails to open under his hand. Dean looks around for something to break the glass with, and misses whatever it is the angel does to blow the window right out of its frame. He glances back at Dean over his shoulder. "Give me a boost."

With no idea what the hell's behind them, Dean bends down and lets Castiel put one worn leather shoe on his linked hands, shoves the angel up and straight through the window smooth as a letter through a slot. He hears him land outside with a hard thump. Out in the station heavy footsteps approach. Dean steps back, gets a running start and half jumps, half dives through the window. He lands in a smooth roll on the other side, which ends up being less smooth when he has to throw himself harshly to the side to avoid smacking into the building on the other side of the alley. Castiel's kneeling a few feet away from the window, trying to lever himself to his feet. Dean hurries over to him.

"What's going on? Demon?" He pulls Castiel to his feet by grabbing an arm and slinging it over his shoulders. The angel immediately begins to struggle towards the exit of the alley, Dean taking the hint and helping him along.

"What is it?" Dean plunges his free arm into his pocket to grab the salt.

"Esriel's comrades," growls the angel, in a voice that sounds like it's been sandpapered.

"Well, this'll do fuck-all for that." Dean drops the box. They round the corner and peel out onto the sidewalk of a busy street – a man in a wrinkled business suit staggering drunkenly, supported by a younger man in a trench coat with no pants and plastic crocs jammed hastily over his feet – hurrying desperately past a fancy women's hairdressers. It would be funny, if it weren't likely to be deadly.

"Dude, seriously, since when do you people carry vendettas? What'd I ever do to them?" Dean shoulders his way through a herd of high-schoolers who stop and stare.

"It's not what you did… it's what you are," replies Castiel, struggling for breath, which Dean knows is probably not a good thing.

"Yeah, well, I can't help that."

"They believe they can."

"I'm so glad you chose now to grow a sense of humour!" Dean hangs a sharp left onto a narrow side street of ugly industrial stores – wholesalers and trade offices – whose lights are all out for the night. The streetlights are spotty and dim at best. "Is there any way to fight them?"

"For you? No. And… I'm not likely to win at the moment."

"Peachy. Is there any way to hide from them? Or send them away, like Anna did before? _Something_?" He says it as Castiel's legs begin to buckle, and he's forced to drag the angel over to the cement steps of a paint store. Every nerve Dean has is screaming at him, the knowledge that he has no weapon, no protection, no plan battering him from all sides until he can hardly think.

Even hunters never reckon with having to fight angels.

On the steps, Castiel is close to hacking, his breaths coming as raspy gasps, and he's curled awkwardly over the cement. He doesn't bother to try to sit up.

"I can't banish indefinitely… can't hide us completely."

"Hey, I'll take incomplete over smiting any day." He'll take anything over sitting here doing nothing out in the open. "If we can hang on 'til Sam gets here with the car and the arsenal…"

"I need a knife."

Dean looks around as if expecting to find one just lying on the pavement. And then his eyes catch the sign above the store across the street. Carmichael's Woodworking.

"Wait here."

He's in and out in under five minutes, returning with a free chisel lying heavy in his pocket and broken glass in the soles of his shoes. Castiel isn't looking much better, but he's nearly sitting up now, back twisted like a cat to watch Dean hurry across the street. His eyes shine in the dusk.

"Here," says Dean, and hands him the chisel. "That's the best I could do."

"Take off the coat." Cast takes the chisel in his right hand without once looking at it.

"I'm not going to like this, am I?" Dean shrugs off the coat anyway, then makes to sit down next to the angel. He freezes as headlights sweep over him and a rattling GMC Jimmy coughs past. "This is kind of open," he mutters, dropping onto the cool steps.

"There's no time." Castiel reaches out an rests a light hand on Dean's shoulder – the unmarked one. Draws it closer, and raises the chisel. Dean stiffens. "It won't hurt."

Shockingly, it doesn't. Dean looks away as soon as the angel puts the cold metal against the skin of his upper arm, but there's no pain. Just a light pressure, so light he thinks the angel is tracing out his pattern beforehand. Until he looks down, and sees the bright blood flowing down his arm.

Castiel is carving something – Dean can't tell what with the blood – in clean, straight strokes, one line at a time. The fact that he's doing so with a chisel doesn't seem to be giving him any trouble, and Dean suspects that anything with an edge would have done as well. There is no consideration, no thought; the angel cuts the sigil into Dean's flesh in flowing lines as though he's done it a thousand times. As though he's signing his name on Dean's skin, leaving his mark. Again.

Castiel finishes with no more ceremony than he started with, simply lowering the chisel and then pressing two fingers over the slashed skin. The angel's touch is soft and warm as a southern breeze, and has very little of anything human about it. Dean stares at his arm, and then runs a finger through the pool of crimson over the cuts. Underneath, the skin is whole, the wounds closed.

"Huh," he says, and looks up. "So, what, now I'm dampened from angel … radar … Cas?"

The angel's eyes are closed, and as Dean watches he slumps to the side. Dean reaches out to grab him, and shakes him. "Cas! Cas, wake up. This is not a good time for a nap!"

Castiel's eyes crack open, but he says nothing, and he doesn't look at Dean. "I begin to find this constraint… irritating."

"Yeah, well, it's called having the shit kicked out of you. Let's go." He pulls on the coat again, then grabs the angel's arm and pulls him to his feet, helping the angel down the stairs. Castiel is uneven on his feet, leaning even more heavily against Dean now. They stumble into a side street, Dean pulling Castiel's arm awkwardly over his shoulder and helping him along more carefully when his feet begin to fall out from under him.

"Cas, what kind of a search radius are we looking at here? Do we need to get out of town, or are we pretty much doomed anywhere on the continent?"

"They search by sight… and by sense. We are hidden … from sense."

"So we need to stay out of sight."

"They search from above. Somewhere low, dark."

"A basement?" Dean scans the alleyway; there are only a few grungy doors, and no windows at ankle height. No apparent basements.

"That would do."

The streetlights are on now, lighting the twilight in dim incandescence, tinted slightly orange from the cool filaments. Dean turns out into the wider street and hurries along as fast as Castiel can stand, painfully aware of the eyes on them, of the open skies above. He feels like a damn soldier, waiting to be strifed from the sky. At the next corner he catches a hint of glass in the alleyway and peels in, Castiel stumbling on an empty box. Sure enough, there's a set of stairs leading down beneath street level to a wooden door. The window beside it is dark.

With none of the light from the street flowing over the lip of the stairs' well, it's difficult to see, but Dean thinks there's a layer of dust over the doorstep. Of course, that could just be wishful thinking.

Either way, it turns out to be irrelevant; he reaches out to find that the door is locked, and he has nothing even remotely capable of picking it with him.

His immediate inclination is to doubt that this is the worst day he's ever had – getting killed by Hell Hounds probably beats it – but seriously. _Seriously_.

"If you can't open this door," he says to Castiel in a voice that's so thick with frustration it's practically more emotion than sound, "then so help me I'll …" he trails off, partially because even furious as he is with this whole damn situation he can't think of anything to threaten an angel with, and partially because Castiel raises his hand. There's a quiet click in the darkness, and the door slips open quietly. "Good," snarls Dean, and stumbles inside, pushing the door shut behind them.

It turns out, in fact, to not be so good, when he hits the light switch and nothing happens. The streetlights are on outside, and he remembers seeing lights on in the building, so it's not a power disruption issue. He props the angel up against the wall and stumbles further into the room, one arm raised in front of him. It's completely dark; wherever the window is, there must be something covering it.

The ground underfoot is hard – concrete or linoleum – and he doesn't come across anything until he hits the far wall, which is cold and bare. On the way back something brushes the top of his head, and he's down on his knees with one hand in his pocket, heart in his throat, completely blind. He stands slowly, reaching out, and clasps a hand over a naked bulb hanging from the ceiling on a wire. He feels around, but finds no cord to turn it on. Almost certainly, the power to the apartment's been shut off.

"You know," says Dean, "if there is any way this day could get worse short of your friends finding us, I'd really like to know how."

Castiel says nothing. Huffing, Dean marches back over to him, hits the wall and has to walk along it until he finds the angel and takes him into the room and helps him sit down next to a wall further from the door. It's enough time to cool his head.

"I'm gonna go out and call Sam again, give him our address. I've probably got just enough change. You stay here and try not to do anything to screw up our karma even further."

Castiel says nothing.

"Right," says Dean, and walks out, after stumbling into the wall.

-------------------------------------------------

He peeks out to get the street name and address, and then slinks the opposite way through the alley to avoid anyone who saw their entrance and might still be hanging around.

Dean's got a decent sense of direction – nothing to write home about, but he doesn't get lost going out for beers in unfamiliar neighbourhoods – but he forces himself to pay extreme attention to his route, noting landmarks and directions taken because if he forgets he's sure he won't find Castiel again. It's just like the pre-cell phone dinosaur era all over again.

He ends up at a corner store, the neon light from the signs painting the phone booth out front a pale patriotic red and blue. He slips inside, trying to ignore the smell, and rustles the last of his change out of his – Castiel's – _Jimmy's _– pocket. Irritated with himself, and wishing he didn't know why, he shoves the nickels and dimes into the slot. The phone rings three times before clicking in.

"Dean? I'm at the station, where are you?"

"Cas spooked. Said someone's after us. Some of his friends."

"The _angels_ are after you? What the hell'd you do?"

"I don't know! Look, we're squatting in a cellar, come pick us up."

"Where?" Sam's voice is eager, and he barks the word out.

"We're –" he pauses to remember, not for any other reason. But as he does so it just happens to occur to him, a tiny worm of a suspicion slithering in through the thick pulp of his thoughts, _is this Sam?_ Castiel's faked a call before. Was it coincidence company showed up right after he gave Sam their location. "uh, 17 Nicholson." Nicholson: are you really you?

"Got it."

_Shit_. Dean slams the receiver down and bolts out into the street, spinning wildly to avoid a passing minivan whose horn tears through the quiet evening, and continuing on without slowing. He sprints the full length of two city blocks through alleyways, taking abandoned boxes and fallen garbage cans like hurdles and nearly tripping in his awkward shoes, before he remembers Castiel's words _they search from above_. Dean throws himself up against a rough cinder-block wall so fast he's surprised he doesn't give himself road rash, panting hard in the shadows. From then on he creeps back, scuttling across streets at the darkest point, head down to keep from catching something's eye.

He's on the run from _angels_. How screwed up is that?

Then he remembers he's on the run from angels _with_ an angel, and gives it up as a lost cause. His life's never been even close to normal, but after Dad hared off after Yellow Eyes, it took a steady nose-dive right off the cliff of the even _conceivable_.

He sneaks along the last alley with his back to the wall, jacket providing a cackling whisper as it scratches lightly against the brick. He stumbles down the dark stairs, and comes up against the door still facing the centre of the alley; opens it and slips inside, just another shadow.

"Cas?" he asks the darkness, hands clenched in uncomfortable fists for lack of a better weapon – as though they would do any good against anything strong enough to have taken out the angel.

"Yes," says the rough voice. Dean lets the door close and takes a few steps towards the centre of the room, feet flapping loosely in the crocs.

"I called Sam," he says, with his driest sarcasm. "Guess who it was?" There's no answer from Castiel, just a quiet scratching shift, worn silk against brick. "Damn well not him," continues Dean, anger revealed like an overripe fig splitting open to let the bright festering insides spill out. He squats down, facing the angel's general direction, anything more than that a mystery in the dark. "Now would be a good time to tell me what the fuck's going on. Who's after us – after _me_?"

There's a long pause. Dean, recognizing this as a conversation that's going to take some time, sits down on the cold cement floors, running his fingers over the dusty cracks and raised specks as he does so. The air smells faintly of turpentine and damp earth, an odd mix. It's not that far from the smell of corpse-burning, and that keeps his mind on the subject at hand rather than the battery of peripheral thoughts fighting for his attention (_Where's Sam? Do they know where we are? Can you fight angels? Did he get the message I left?) _He sits, uncomfortable, uneasy, and waits.

Finally, Castiel breaks the silence, in a slow voice like tires crunching over dry gravel. "There are … disagreements in our ranks, Dean. You know that an angel who chooses to Disobey may also choose to Fall."

"Like Anna," Dean nods once, sharp and heavy as the beat of a long pendulum.

"Yes. However, it has become apparent to me that not all those who disagree with our orders take that course."

There's a terse few seconds while Dean takes in the implications of that, the meaning behind the dry words, and then spits them back again rough-edged. "You mean there are rogue angels? Angels running around out there with the power to smite entire cities, out of control?"

"You did not object to Anna's 'going rogue,'" points out Castiel. Dean's angry enough to ignore the jab for favour of doing more damage.

"Anna had almost 3 decades of being human to help her keep her priorities straight. These guys just have … how many millennia of thinking of us like insects?" That sparks a thought, and he doesn't have to wait for the angel not to answer the rhetorical question. "Wait – did they get Uriel?" Not wanting to tempt fate, he hasn't brought up the short-tempered angel's disappearance with Castiel, but he hasn't failed to notice it, either.

"Dean, this is not a topic I could discuss even with my brethren..."

"Yeah, but no one's trying to skewer them."

There's a stretched, musty silence, and the pieces start to fall into place. It raises the hair on the back of Dean's neck. "…Or are they? That whole thing with Alastair – you never found out what was killing angels, or how. But now you know." Dean lays the words down careful and exact as a bricklayer constructing a wall.

"Yes," says Castiel, sandpaper-rough.

"And it's you. Angels are killing angels. The front lines are fighting demons, while the back lines stab them in the back." Even his incredulity is dulled by the sheer _size_ of the discovery.

"It's not a war; our casualties were notable, but not high. Very few have realised, as I have, that dissent is present in our ranks."

"Uriel did, and they got him?"

"Dean – Anna killed Uriel."

"_Anna_?" Dean sits up so fast he scrapes his knuckles on the uneven concrete.

"Yes. To stop him from killing me."

There's a long, uneasy silence, in which Dean valiantly doesn't say "I told you so," and at the same time marvels. Uriel had always been a bastard, but he'd still been, well, an angel. And, hard as it was even to think it, for Dean he'd been somewhat protected by his association with Castiel. A friend of the more sympathetic angel couldn't be a complete jerk, right?

Wrong, apparently. Almost dead wrong, for Castiel.

"So. Uriel. Mr. Polite in the suit with the renaissance décor."

"Esriel," supplies Castiel.

"Right. That's two. How many more are we talking about here?"

"I have no way of knowing. Uriel's comrades must know he failed to persuade me; they will not reveal themselves to me."

"Ballpark. A couple? A dozen?"

"Perhaps as few as four or five. But if this treason has spread beyond my garrison… there could be hundreds. Although, I refuse to believe – that's not –" Castiel grinds to a halt, voice glacier-cold, withering, and Dean wonders what emotions are seething beneath the veneer of ice, if any.

"Well, that's reassuring. For all we know, you're the only angel in Heaven still following orders."

Castiel is ominously silent, and the darkness feels heavier now than before, thick and inky and suffocating. Dean suddenly wonders how long the angel's been living – been fighting – with that immense burden on his shoulders. Intensely awkward, he uncrosses his legs and re-crosses them in the other direction with a whisper of fabric from the trench coat.

"Right. We know how. We know who, kind of." More like not really at all, but they won't get anywhere whining about it. "So: why?"

Outside, a motorcycle revs and screams its way by, the high windows shivering slightly behind their cardboard covers. Castiel doesn't move one inch as far as Dean can tell. He tries to imagine the angel sitting there against the wall, brick probably pock-marked and water-stained, back straight despite the hole in it, watching Dean with bright eyes set in a dark face.

"It doesn't matter," says Castiel, long after the motorbike's grumbling echoes have died away and left them in silence again. His dismissal, for all its brusqueness, is somehow unconvincing. Rather than blowing up and alienating the angel, Dean just presses.

"Yeah, it does. They tried to kill you, they tried to kill me. For all we know, they even tried to kill Sam –" he stops to swallow thickly, and force the fear and rage back into the pit of his stomach – "and I want to know: _why_?"

More silence. Dean's not good at these long, slow confrontations. He's too restless, too physical, and sitting still and quiet rather than just going over there to shake sense out of the angel is making the bones in his hands ache. But he does, forces himself to wait while Castiel painstakingly adjusts his principals, and probably even more so his loyalties.

Dean's only hint that the angel's finished, that he's ready, is a raspy breath. And then he begins.

"You know," Castiel says in a dry lecture-town, "that Lucifer was an angel."

"Yeah, sure, better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven, and all that jazz."

A pause, Dean wondering if he's offended the angel, but when he goes on it's in exactly the same bland tone.

"That's the view which you have all taken, which your churches and authorities and poets all hold: that Lucifer Fell due to his pride; that his desire for power seduced him from Heaven's light. From your point of view, it is an understandable line to take. Lucifer _was_ proud, and powerful – strength and grace unparalleled even amongst our highest ranks. Like you, I believed for countless years that pride was Lucifer's downfall." Castiel pauses for a slow breath, silk rustling against brick again. "I believe now that that is merely what I was taught to believe, and what you chose to believe. Because the truth was not too only painful, it was incredibly dangerous." Castiel stops, dropping seamlessly out of his lecture.

Dean finds he's risen to his knees without noticing, tense as a piano-wire, knuckles resting against the ground. "Cas?"

The angel sighs. "Lucifer Fell because he no longer believed, Dean."

"Believed? Believed what?" Castiel's tone suggests he should know, that it's obvious and evident, but he doesn't and with the air tense as a thick yellow afternoon before a thunderstorm, he doesn't have the patience to work it out. His hairs are all standing on edge, nerve ends tingling.

"That there is a God," says Castiel, dropping the five words easily as smooth stones into a still pond.

Dean gapes. Sits there struggling silently for several seconds trying to make sense of the angel's words, and fails.

"But – you're _angels_. God's your _Father_. How – don't you _know_?"

Anna spoke of her unknowable Father, of the insecurity, the uncertainty, the blind faith. Made it perfectly clear to him, and really all that needed was being John Winchester's son. But still, he didn't, and can't believe it. Not entirely. It's just – he can sympathise, but understand? How could anyone, any human, understand? It's incomprehensible – how can they not believe in the existence of their Father? His skull's beginning to ache just thinking about it.

"Dean, I don't share their disbelief. I don't, but… I can understand it. I hope that I will hold my faith always, that I will not waver. But Lucifer was older than me. Much, much older. I was young when he Fell, and I did not understand. Now, I do. Perhaps one day…" There's a tiny, bony click as the angel snaps his jaws shut. A harsh breath, and then, "In any case. It seems some of my brethren now feel as Lucifer did. And in their darkness, they remember his strength and beauty, and shift their allegiances."

"Does he know?"

"I have no way of knowing. I hope – I pray – not. If there are angels in our ranks taking order from Hell… It is becoming clear that the Apocalypse is something which doesn't concern the Earth alone. As it draws nearer, the conflict is threatening to tear apart Heaven as well, to destroy not only all that we have, but all that we _are_. And it may be that there are very few others who realise it."

A pause, in which Castiel takes an audible breath. It's deep and gruff, and sounds like the breath of a man who's just struggled to the top of a mountain. He lets it out, long and slow, as heavy seconds tick by and carry away the raw edges of his words.

"I shouldn't have told you this, Dean," he says, when his speech has been blunted, slightly. "This knowledge is dangerous – extremely so."

"Well, it's not like they weren't trying to kill me already or anything," points out Dean with a lightness he doesn't feel. "And besides, I've got no one to tell."

"You have Sam."

"I trust Sam."

"I don't trust his demon friend. As long as they're in contact, Dean, you can't trust him with this. If Hell discovers it has sympathisers in Heaven's ranks –"

"Trojan Horse?"

"Yes. We will all burn, either in Falling or with knives in our hearts. And if we are destroyed, all those in our fields, all those in our light, will either perish or burn with us. Heaven will fall."

There's nothing to say. Nothing that will make this truth any less terrifying. Dean, joints aching with the need for activity, the stifling drive to do _something_ to take his mind off this sudden crushing weight that's been dropped on him, stands abruptly. Walks to the far wall and back, footsteps shuffling and slightly muffled by the rubber.

"Promise me you won't tell Sam, Dean. This is not a matter of trust: I wouldn't have told you, if it hadn't been necessary, and even now I doubt my choice. It is simply too great a risk. Promise me."

"Alright. Fine." Dean spits the bitter words out distastefully, just another stake driven between him and Sam. It seems the world holds nothing but stakes for the two of them, these days.

"Thank you," says Castiel, and Dean blinks at the calm gratitude in his voice.

"Yeah, whatever. Look, what are we going to do about this? I mean, this is kind of a major problem."

"For now, we must find and stop Esriel's comrade or comrades. Beyond that… we can decide when we get there."

"You know, I wish that just once, you'd have a plan I could be on board with." Dean sighs and walks over to the wall under the window, leans against it and reaches up to pull a corner of cardboard away from the glass. "How long until you're good to zap us back to Sam?" He can't see anything from down here; the nearest streetlight is out, and the road is hardly lighter than the room. He lets go of the cardboard, it swings back weakly towards the window.

"It shouldn't be…" Castiel stops, and then there's a shuffling sound. Out in the street, there's a flicker from the burnt-out light.

"Cas?"

"Quiet."

Dean doesn't move, and doesn't hear Castiel move either, which is why he nearly punches the angel in the face when he drops a hand onto Dean's shoulder out of nowhere and pulls him back away from the door.

"They can't know we're here, they can't track us," hisses Dean, but the assurance sounds empty even to him.

"They can't track you," replies Castiel, so quiet even Dean's straining ears barely pick up the murmur. "Our conversation distracted me; my guard wasn't complete."

"Can you fight them?"

"One, perhaps. More, no."

Dean is expecting to hear the footsteps come down the stairs, and counts on it more than he should. He doesn't hear them. But there's no way to miss the flash of light which blows the door right off its hinges, because it blinds him.

Castiel shoves him hard from behind, hard enough to throw him halfway across the room with a strength he never would have expected from the angel, and he falls the rest of the way on his own, slamming into the wall and falling to the floor. He can't see anything except the fireworks exploding against the backdrop of his retinas, but he hears the two angels meet with a sound like a kick connecting with a punching bag. There are no words exchanged, no greetings, no warnings. Just a scrambled fight in the darkness, illustrated for Dean solely by the swish of fabric and the sound of blows connecting. If either angel is at all hampered by the darkness, there's no sign of it that he can pick up.

It doesn't take Dean long to scramble to his feet, but even so all he can do is stand against the wall, fists raised and muscles hard as wood, waiting for an attack he can't predict. He has no way to tell who's winning, and no way to tell whether he should be getting the hell out of here or not, although he suspects the answer to that is pretty damn obvious. He stays anyway, not sure whether it's to help Castiel or to hope for his protection. Not sure, when it comes down to it, what kind of weight Castiel pulls in his ranks.

Something sparks, silhouetting Castiel with a woman in front of him with her back to Dean, in a brief burst of white light. Darkness, and then another spark like a tiny flash of lightning, this time the two angels in profile, and he can see that it's something they're holding which is sparking with a sound like a fuse blowing each time they connect. It doesn't take much imagination to know what they're fighting with. Weapons that can kill an angel, in the hands of another angel.

Another flash, this time Castiel pushed up against the windowed wall. Another, and another, and another, a near-continuous flashing hum like the light of a mosquito-trap. She's going for his throat, Dean sees, while he blocks with his own weapon. Sees the movements in a jerky sort of stop-motion photography through the white light's strobe. Sees that Castiel's face is drawn and bloody, and his shoulders are stooped. Sees that her movements are strong and sharp and show no signs of fatigue. Sees that Castiel will loose.

Dean has no weapons, nothing but a box of salt, a few pennies and a ball of receipts belonging to a man who might not even exist anymore. As if that matters: even if he had a shotgun and an iron knife it wouldn't do any good. If he could wish for anything in the world right now and have it granted, it still wouldn't do any good.

He goes anyway.

There's no plan, no idea. He just can't let the angel be killed in front of him without doing anything. He lunches across the room at full speed and tackles right into both of them, knocking the woman down and away from Castiel. The light goes out. Something slams into his shoulder, something like a mallet, and crushes him down on his back into the hard cement with what feels like the weight of a semi behind it. It's like landing on a bed of hot coals, scorching pain licking across his whole back, blackening and burning the bones, and a red fog closes over his eyes for an incalculable while.

When it parts again he can hear heavy panting, and cloth shifting, and something dragging on the ground. He pulls himself up onto his elbows despite the pain, and shuffles back until he hits the wall. Lies resting against it for several aching breaths before beginning to try to haul himself to his feet.

They're fighting again, and now he can here muttered whispers, the dry hissing sound he recognises from Castiel's using magic, or whatever that counts as in the hands of angels. They're cut off by a heavy blow every time, and he can't tell who it is who's trying to use magic or who's stopping it. Then a long burst of light, Castiel parrying a blow at his chest, looking exhausted, face covered in blood. The woman looks pressed and battered, but determined. The light goes out.

"Run," breaks out Castiel's voice from the far corner, hard pressed. Dean can hear him panting. There's a snort from the other angel, but she says nothing. A flash of light, Castiel's eyes staring sharply at Dean over her shoulder. He is doing nothing but defending, retreating, losing ground and falling into corners.

"Let me help," says Dean, thick as though speaking through a mouthful of marbles, meaning _tell me what to do_.

"You can't help him," replies the other angel, harsh and unimpressed. "Run if you want; I'll finish you next."

"Run; she can't find you." Cloth tearing, a heavy weight striking something. Light crackling, Castiel half-squatting against a wall, blocking a blow above his head. It goes out and there's a shuffling thud, Castiel falling. "_Run!_"

"Like hell." Dean dives across again, hits the woman full in the back and slams her into the wall with all his weight, elbow catching the back of her neck and ramming her forehead into the bricks and pins her there for several seconds. And then she recovers and breaks loose. Her backhand strikes him in the stomach, and throws him right across the room. Dean's expecting the blow enough to roll with it, and hits the wall with his right side shoulder-first. He tumbles down to the ground feeling as though someone's filled his shoulder joint with white-hot iron, landing in an uneven slump.

Light sizzles through the room, different this time, warm and pale gold. It lights up Castiel, hand against a bloody rune on the wall behind him, the other angel frozen pushing away from the wall with her long silver weapon hanging from one hand. Castiel rises unsteadily to his feet, using the hand still pressed against the rune for leverage. In his other, he holds his own weapon, the one he took less than 24 hours ago. The other angel doesn't move, stands still as a pale pillar in the buttery light. She's dressed in light, loose slacks, white heels and a knee-length knit jacket that accentuate a slim figure. Her bobbed strawberry-blonde hair is all in disarray around a delicate face, and if it weren't for Castiel standing beaten and bloodied next to her Dean wouldn't have believed she could stand up to a single punch. But then Jo had been much the same, and she'd fought like a tiger.

"You and Esriel always were close," says Castiel, words choked out gruffly along with a trail of blood. "How many others are there?" His hand slips slightly on the rune, and she shifts with an electric crackle.

"You can't believe I would tell you." There is no fear in her voice, but no mocking either. Just a tired acceptance, and beneath that firm resolve.

"We've served together for millennia."

"Not any longer. I won't betray my comrades."

"You've already betrayed them. Betrayed your Father, betrayed your brethren, betrayed Heaven. Sister, will you not repent?" Castiel is straightening, finding a new bastion of strength, and with it his voice is clearing. Losing its pained gruffness to gain a new, sharper pain.

"I'm not your sister, Castiel. Not anymore. There is no Father; the only ties which bind us are our loyalties."

Dean, who has in this time been pulling himself unsteadily to his feet, finally finds them and leans against the wall for support.

"You won't repent?" asks Castiel, again, hand pressing more firmly against the bloody sigil.

She closes bright cat-green eyes. "I have chosen. I will follow my brothers."

There's a long pause, in which neither of them move. Dean finally shifts, unable to stand still anymore, and breaks the moment.

"Dean. Close your eyes." Castiel doesn't look at him, doesn't look away from the angel in front of him, caught in her awkward pose. His face displays nothing but a kind of hard, patient resolve. Dean does as he's told.

In the blackness, there's a wet sound, and then a thump. And then, with a whiteness that burns into his eyelids, a crack of thunder.

When he opens his eyes again, there's just darkness. No sound, no light.

"Cas?" he asks, after a moment, uncertain.

A light hand drops onto his shoulder, and the fire beneath his skin flares up. He curses and jerks away.

"Sorry," says the angel, quietly. "We need to leave." Dean can't pick any emotion out of his hard tone, but there's more strength there than there has been all day.

"No kidding," says Dean. And then, "Where … to?"

Halfway through his question, the world blinks out and then back in again, and they're standing on grass in the hazy glow of streetlights. Dean looks around, and in the yellow-orange light can see that they're standing on the gentle slope of a hill overlooking a small pond. A park, somewhere.

"You got your mojo back."

"So it seems." Castiel, standing beside him, is looking resolutely out at the pond.

"You're all fixed up?"

"Close enough," says the angel flatly, and Dean has no idea what that means. Whether he is, and just doesn't want to say so, or whether he's really not but equally doesn't want to bring it up.

"You've really got to learn how to have a conversation."

"I believe we're having one," returns the angel, still staring at the still water. And then, after a moment in which Dean stares, "I can bring you back to Sam now. He's alright, it seems. He's in Little Rock."

Dean sighs, a weight he hadn't noticed cut loose from his shoulders and falling away. "That's good."

"You will keep your promise?"

"Are we not going to talk about the fact that another angel just tried to kill us? What if there are more out there?"

"It is possible, although Esriel and Mariel were always a close pair, and they kept to themselves; it is likely that if they chose to take action they did so alone. Whether that is true or not, tonight we have sent a message. Two of their force are dead. They won't try again so lightly, and they can't make a larger attempt without attracting attention. I can't promise anything, but I believe you will be safe, for the time being. I will try to keep an eye on you."

"Peachy," grits out Dean thickly. "And you?"

"I can look after myself," says Castiel, with the first sign of temper Dean's seen in him in a while. Dean shrugs with his good shoulder; the angel knows as well as he does what happened today, he can draw his own conclusions. Probably, he already has. Dean wonders just how far he's adjusted his loyalties to include Dean. To include a more human perspective.

"So that's it. We're not going to do anything? Just wait and hope they don't either?"

"There's nothing you can do, Dean. I will keep an eye on our ranks, and I investigate where I can. That's all we can do, apart from making sure no news of this reaches the demons. Absolutely none," he repeats, stark and strong.

Dean makes to cross his arms, stops at the red-hot tendrils of pain that wrap themselves around his bones and hisses instead. "Right, right."

"Dean –"

"I promised, didn't I?" snaps Dean. Castiel turns to face him, finally, eyes glinting in the streetlights. His expression is hard, and just slightly weary.

"Yes. You did. Don't forget." His shoulders slump, just slightly, and Dean can see that he isn't fully right yet, is still stiff and awkward and pained. Dean wonders how much of that comes from his wounds, and how much from his actions. The angel cocks his head to the side a fraction, face lightening, or maybe that's just an effect of the streetlamps. "And: thank you."

Dean's opening his mouth to ask for what, but they're not in the park anymore. Are now standing on a thin carpet in a hotel room. Or rather, he is. Alone, in his T and boxers. Except for Sam, sitting up hurriedly from his slump over his computer. Dean flinches at the sudden brush of cold air on his bare skin; the trenchcoat is gone. And finds that there's no pain, no fire, no aching. He's been returned exactly as he left, not much more than 24 hours ago now.

The damn angel has dumped him back like a piece of luggage, without giving him any time to prepare, any warning at all, and on top of it hasn't even stuck around to give him a hand. Thank you his ass.

Because now he has to face up to telling Sam that he can't tell him where he's been, or what he's been doing, and watch yet another wedge split them further apart.

END


End file.
